I spent too much time this past weekend trying to get a great action shot of the red-winged blackbirds at my neighbor’s pond. You know how sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees? In this case, I couldn’t see the blackbirds for the cattails.
The blackbirds would pop up occasionally into my line of sight above the mass of cattails that line the pond, but as soon as my camera was ready, they dove back down again. I soon realized that cattails could make just as compelling a “start of spring” topic as the red-winged blackbirds.
Cattails (Typha latifolia) are the iconic freshwater wetland plant; where there is freshwater and some sun, there will be cattails. I think cattails are beautiful throughout the year, but right now is my favorite cattail season, mostly for nostalgic reasons.
When my kids were little, they used to go out on the early spring ice and brandish the cattails-joyfully hitting each other with those fluffy brown “cigars” that top the stems, releasing clouds of the tiny seeds (attached to fluffy parachutes) into the bright, cold spring air. Those cattails were in the final stage of their reproductive cycle, many still shedding seeds from the previous summer. The fluff will be gone soon, so now is a good time to check it out. It is water-repellent and downy and has been used for everything from diapers to life-jacket filling to the stuffing in pillows. I’ve never tried this, but you can mix the fluff with water and chew it like gum or use it as a soup-thickener. I prefer to do what my kids did — grab it and watch the tightly-packed seeds explode into the air.
Cattails are perennials. Like the closely related blue flag iris, the part of the plant that we see grows from an underground stem called a rhizome. Each year’s growth dies back in the fall and new shoots emerge in the spring. I didn’t see any this weekend, but those shoots will be here soon.
All parts of the cattail are edible, but the young shoots are, I think, one of the most delicious. Wait until the new shoots are about one-foot high, then wade out into the often-freezing muck, reach down into that freezing muck and cut the shoot as close to the base as possible. Rinse well and remove the outer leaves and you have a tender middle that resembles leeks. I steam the young shoots; they are crispy and delicious and taste a little bit like cabbage. Raw shoots taste more like cucumber and, like cucumbers, can be pickled. I like to wait until the shoots are over a foot or so high before harvesting to avoid confusing them with the shorter poisonous blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) shoots. When collecting I also look at the leaves, cattail leaves are D-shaped in cross-section with blunt, rounded leaf tips, while iris leaves are flat and have pointed tips.
Foraging can be problematic, especially if the plant or fungi being foraged is in any way in decline already due to human activity. Cattails, however, are one of the few plants I have no problem collecting-the warming climate in New England is causing some wetland plants, like cattails to thrive. So, a few gathered here and there won’t have much of an impact. What’s more, my neighbor bush-hogs a large number of their cattails every year in a futile attempt to control the cattail’s relentless spread.
One of my favorite rituals for welcoming in spring is to gather spring greens (in my case dandelions, nettles and cattails). I just take a token, these nutritious powerhouses need to go to the wildlife who can’t go to a grocery store to buy a plastic box full of lettuce and spinach, who have to wait for the sun and spring rain to bring these delicacies to their table.
Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at Dover High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. Send your photos and observations to [email protected]. Read more of her Nature News columns online at Seacoastonline.com and pikes-hikes.com, and follow her on Instagram @pikeshikes.
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